The Other Shoe

The destruction of the terrorist enclave in Fallujah is entering its (for now) final phase:

"It is with all pleasure that I announce to you that operation New Dawn has been concluded," the minister of state for national security, Qasim Dawood, said at a news conference in Baghdad, as Marine artillery and aerial gunships continued to pummel Fallujah 35 miles to the west. "Major operations have been brought to a conclusion."

I think it would be a very good thing if people stopped saying things like that.

U.S. soldiers and Marines, meanwhile, kept fighting.

"We control 90 percent, but the 10 percent that's left is the most difficult," said Capt. Erik Krivda, a member of Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command from Gaithersburg.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been battling fighters in this insurgent stronghold since ground troops followed a barrage of artillery fire into the city Monday night. Dawood said that more than 1,000 insurgents had been killed and 200 captured. A militia group, the Army of Mohammad, reported that 73 fighters had been killed.

It was unclear how many insurgents remained in the fight, or even the city. A U.S. military cordon around Fallujah proved porous, with Iraqi reporters entering the city from the south, and fighters leaving the same way. Others escaped by boat across the Euphrates River to the west, according to witnesses.

The insurgents who remained were very low on food, relying on fruit and canned goods, according to witnesses.

They're a little short on "prospects for victory" as well.

In areas controlled by U.S. forces, loudspeakers mounted on Humvees urged that "all fighters in Fallujah should surrender, and we guarantee they will not be killed or insulted."

From a loudspeaker on a mosque still controlled by insurgents, the fighters replied: "We ask the American soldiers to surrender and we guarantee that we will kill and torture them."

Despite the bravado, the remaining insurgents are doomed.

And that's a good thing. Remember...if they got their hands on you, they'd put the "torture and kill" option into effect too. Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, black or white, MoveOn or Moral Majority, if you're what these murderous clowns consider an "infidel" your head is, quite literally, on the chopping block.

The way I look at it, there are two easy-to-remember rules in the Global War on Terror:

1. Better them...

...than us.

2. Better there...

...than here. 

-posted by Charlie Eklund 

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• #2 Comment from ceklundesqEntry Author 
  11/16/04 10:42 AM | Permalink

  Neil-
  
  No, I don't think that Iraq had an active hand in the attacks of September 11, 2001 any more than Hitler had a direct hand in Pearl Harbor or that Mussolini had a clear hand in the attack on Wake Island.
  
  Lack of a direct hand in that attack does not mean that Saddam's regime had not proven to be an active and continuing threat to the United States, however, and it constantly surprises me when someone implies that it does.
  
  It is clear that Iraq was indeed involved in missile attacks on American aircraft every day...every single day...from the mid 1990's until the Coalition invasion of last year. I do believe, as the 911 Commision found, that Al Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq had numerous contacts of an unknown nature all throughout the 1990's. Neither I nor the 911 Commission knows enough about the meetings that were conducted between Al Qaeda and Iraq to know what the true level of their cooperation was, and after September 11 it would be the height of foolishness to assume that such interactions were innocent, as some have suggested the 911 Commission's report indicate.
  
  American policy toward Al Qaeda and Iraq during the 1990's was strikingly similar. The policy toward Al Qaeda was to allow them to repeatedly attack American interests and kill Americans without a meaningful response. This was our policy after the twin embassy bombings in Africa, the attack on the Khobar Towers and the attack on the USS Cole. I would contend that this policy emboldened bin Laden and made an attack like September 11 inevitable.
  
  Similarly, our tepid response to daily violations of the cease-fire agreements of the first Gulf War served to embolden Iraq.
  
  Just as it was necessary to destroy Al Qaeda it was also necessary to destroy Saddam's regime and take the Global War on Terror to the enemy, rather than sitting around, waiting for them to strike again here.
  
  Thats' what I think about that. Thanks for asking.
  
  -Charlie Eklund
  
• #1 Comment from purcellneil 
  11/16/04 6:59 AM | Permalink

  You seem to be suggesting an Iraqi 9/11 connection.
  
  Is this based on new evidence?  I thought our 9/11 Commission had debunked this notion.
  
  Your comments imply that the Sunni resistance fighters of Fallujah were a threat to us here in America, but my recollection is that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi and Yemeni.  Isn't there a difference between a resistance fighter and a terrorist?
  
  I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and the attacks on Al Qaeda bases in that country, but the invasion of Iraq has no connection to the war on terror.
  
  Our invasion and occupation of Iraq has created conditions favorable to the recruitment of terrorists, making it far more likely that our war "there" will bring their war "here."
  
  Neil